“All the days of your life”

I’m going to start off by saying that I’m not a relationship expert. You have ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to take anything I say seriously if you don’t want to. I’m just a 23 year old single girl living in a relatively small area living my life. But through the life I’ve lived I’ve witnessed some great successes and failures in regards to relationships and what we do to fit into a “mold” in order to have the relationship we believe we deserve. Working with middle school and high school girls especially has given me access to some heartbreaking stories and beliefs that girls are told about their worth,beauty, and ability.

Through these things I’ve developed my own personal philosophy if you will about dating and true love. No more of this Disney Princess let’s float through life until you run into this prince from a far off land and have small woodland creatures help fit you for a ball in which will lead to a story book wedding after you overcome some awful evil human obstacle. No more of accepting this belief that we as women should be waiting around for our life to start. Especially Christian women. How can you expect to be serving God to the best of your capacity if you are too busy chasing boys or sitting around waiting for some “prince” to save you-HELLO you’ve already been saved by the Saviour of the world but no big deal, sit at home and feel sorry for yourself. That is REALLY going to help spread the gospel to the world, feed the hungry, or you know do anything remotely productive for the kingdom of God.

So I’ve begun to overhaul the teaching that I’ve always believed about what a true “God centered” relationship is going to look like and about the individual roles of the man and the woman. Because I don’t want to wake up one day with this completely stereotypically relationship or marriage and start to think that I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t want to wait for my life to begin. I want to start living for God now. I want to live a fulfilling life and I don’t believe that my fulfillment should come from a ring on my left hand.

Now don’t misunderstand me; I’m not a man hater who is saying that we need to ward off relationships in general. I believe there is nothing more beautiful than two people joined together in unity of Christ working for the good of His kingdom. I have witnessed some breathtaking marriages that are beautiful depictions for Christ’s love and his pursuit of His church. I’ve grown to appreciate the good, the bad, and the ugly from the marriages and relationships that I’ve witnessed from both my Christian and non-Christian friendships. But I have to believe that there is beauty in the season of singleness. I have to believe that there is a purpose for this time of everyone’s life.
So whether you are struggling through your season of singleness or glowing through your marital bliss or somewhere in between I think it’s time that we stood together as women of faith and had a real conversation about love. A real conversation about what we should strive for and to stop settling for what the world is throwing at our feet. I think it’s about time we all starting living, fully living, in whatever season we’re in and start rejoicing in the beauty that that season alone provides.

*My inspiration for this post is from Proverbs 31:12- I think all women should memorize and strive to be a true Proverbs 31 woman and I think that we should start that pursuit now-not tomorrow, not next week, not when we feel more holy but now*

Proverbs 31:12

“She brings him [her husband] good, not harm,
    all the days of her life.”